


The Only Nearness

by withinandwithout



Category: True Detective
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 19:29:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4071883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withinandwithout/pseuds/withinandwithout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a few 2002 and 2012 one-offs between Rust, Marty, and Maggie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Nearness

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter is 2002, but then I'll probably be firmly rooted in 2012 from here on out.

2002: Year of the Fuck-Up.

Things had been sliding for a while before Rust ever let it show.

On New Year's Day of 2002, he chopped off most of his hair, hoping that would do the trick. Even as he did it, he hated that his inner turmoil finally had a physical manifestation, like there was now evidence that he couldn't keep it together quite as well as he did in the early days of '95. But people changed their hairstyles sometimes, didn't they?

Laurie lamented the loss for about a day, and then let it slide. She knew what he was like. What she didn't know was that Rust was trying to get closer to Crash, but then, he didn't really know that either.

2002 meant he'd been living straight for just about 8 years, give or take. It never got any easier. And Rust never expected a reward, but at a certain point he found himself thinking, "is this it? Is this all there is for me until I finally get to go?" A worn routine: meditation, coffee (two cups), ironed shirts, cold showers, go where told, get confessions if told, catch if not, maybe Marty and maybe not Marty, home, dinner with Laurie, TV or talk or fuck or whatever she wanted to do, go home or stay at her house and pretend to sleep, think until dawn, rinse and repeat.

It was a nightmare that he kept waking up into. And during this stagnate period of life, things began to fall apart inside of him. The white noise in his head started to become deafening, and there came a point each day (usually around 2 PM) when the phrase "The Yellow King" began to grate on his brain like sandpaper. He grew quieter. He could feel his world becoming smaller, and he didn't know how to stop it, or even if he wanted to. Or if it was even worth it.

He searched for a reason for his growing disquietude -- there _had_ to be a reason, but he couldn't come up with one. He had a place to live. He had a steady job. He had a girlfriend, and things were working out alright. When he was hungry, he ate. When he was tired, he didn't sleep, but that was nothing new. In fact, there was nothing _new_ wrong at all. Nothing he hadn't been able to ignore for the last 8 years. And yet his mask was slipping.

Maggie called him one night in the middle of one of his more despondent moments, when he was alone with a bottle of whiskey and a blank mind. Laurie had gone home a few hours ago -- she never stayed at his house overnight. "Get a bedframe and then we'll talk." He hadn't done that yet. It felt like a lot of pressure.

Maggie called sometimes when it was late and Marty wasn't home and she knew he was somewhere he shouldn't be. Rust picked up because sometimes he felt like he should still try to stay part of the body, and only ever talking to Marty and maybe Laurie wasn't really a good enough effort. And because he knew how these conversations with Maggie usually went, and sometimes they were something he needed. Not that he would ever initiate them himself. Marty had made it pretty clear how that would go down with him back in '95, when the mower wasn't a mower but something else entirely. Rust respected the boundary, no matter how many times Marty crossed it on the side.

But still, if Maggie made the call, Rust would pick up.

They would start off by talking about where Marty could be, to which Rust would furnish no clues (he couldn't by this point, even if he'd wanted to -- Marty had abandoned him too, it seemed). Then onto the girls, briefly, then onto Maggie, even more briefly. Then onto Rust, which was just about the only time that Rust could talk about himself and have someone understand. Maggie never gave him any of that side-eyed confusion that Marty usually did. Even down the phone line.

He always squared with Maggie when she asked how he was, mainly because she never flinched and she never turned away. It was sort of like therapy in his mind, but a kind that was actually effective. He'd told Maggie that once (kind of, in his own way) and she'd laughed. "It's sort of like a normal conversation, Rust. People talk about themselves. How they feel. And their friends listen."

All the same, on this particular night, his throat tightened around his carefully-chosen words, and he felt as though he was betraying himself as he responded to the simple question, "how are you doing?" And all the same, it came out harsher than he meant it to.

"Ah, you know. I'm tired, Maggie. I'm just real tired. Ain't no reason for it, but I can't see myself keeping on like this much longer."

Maggie paused on the other end, but her voice stayed calm.

"What do you mean by that, Rust?"

"It's like I know a train wreck's coming and I can't figure out how to stop it. I don't know how much longer I can keep everything in line."

There was a longer pause, but true to form, Maggie didn't balk.

"You sound like you need a break. When was the last time you took time off?"

"Ain't no real reason for me to need a break, you know? Things are steady."

"Of course there's a reason for it. The way you run yourself into the ground. Always have. It's called mental exhaustion, Rust. It's a real thing."

"I don't know. Ain't nothing going on at work that would warrant exhaustion. Ain't that much there for me to focus on, tell the truth. Maybe that's part of the problem."

"Rust, you put so much pressure on yourself, even when you don't have a big case to center your life around. You never stop spinning your wheels. Try to relax somehow. If you can admit you need a break, I'm sure you can get one."

"All the same, if it ain't tangible, maybe it ain't something I should act on."

"Bullshit. This is more valid that most of the stuff people take time off for."

"Mmm. Don't know what I'd do with time off. Feel like it'd be even worse, in a way."

"Focus on Laurie. Focus on something new. You're not used to a quiet, steady life, Rust. I know. It's an adjustment. Just try to take things day by day. Pump the breaks a little bit."

A week or so later, Rust and Laurie broke up because of the kids Laurie wanted that Rust didn't. A month thereafter, Guy Francis pulled Rust's mask off completely with seven little words: "I'll tell you about the Yellow King." Not too long after that, Maggie had her foot firmly on the gas when the final crash happened, and Marty and Rust were both bleeding when the world righted itself again.

 

Rust disappeared after that, and Marty hated him so much that he was just glad, except in the moments when he wished Rust was there so he could kill him. 

But most of the time, he just never wanted to see Rust again. Ain't nothing he wanted with someone like that.

2003: Year of the Nightmare.

Marty was in the process of moving out when Maggie stopped him in the doorway and told him not to blame Rust. The nightmares started shortly after that.

Rust's hands around his throat, Audrey knelt beneath the tree in Erath, Rust regarding him with cold detachment as something approaches -- something giant and angry and awful, Macie with that bird tattooed on her arm, Maggie and Rust and Maggie and Rust and Rust and ....

But gradually, Marty's anger gave way to a kind of vague uncertainty that could only come from a lack of closure, and the nightmares changed. Rust, as he was back in '95, held by shadowy figures, crying for him as the same spiral that had been burned into Reggie Ledoux's back was branded onto him. Rust alone on a beach somewhere, shirt whipping in the wind, wounds still fresh from their fight and Marty somehow knew, just _knew_ that in this dreamworld, Rust was dying. The Yellow King striking again and Rust pleading with him, "you should have listened to me, Marty. _Why didn't you listen to me?_ "

Time passed, and Marty spent a lot of time dwelling on what he would say to Rust if he saw him again. As if he knew for a fact that Rust hadn't drowned himself in a bottle by now, or found some other way out of this world he said he hated so much. But seven, eight, nine years went by without a word, without even a trace of Rust.

Rust disappeared the same way he did everything: with total commitment and absolute conviction. Marty's anger faded, mostly, and still Rust was gone. 


End file.
